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» Quotes by Thomas Jefferson »
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every gove...
A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of ...
A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and orde...
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate t...
All the world would be Christian if they were taught the pure Gospel o...
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience ...
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the wil...
Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing...
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
At last now you can be what the old cannot recall and the young long f...
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations th...
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine...
Friendship
Delay is preferable to error.
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of vi...
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain o...
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook be...
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate...
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only s...
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body an...
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat...
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks a...
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own k...
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government th...
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, ev...
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized...
For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead...
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and th...
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is fill...
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
How much have cost us the evils that never happened!
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines ...
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the s...
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our libertie...
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to anothe...
I cannot live without books.
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel mys...
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office...
Politics
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the worl...
I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every fo...
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the les...
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corpo...
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but...
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
History
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is alw...
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the gover...
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous tha...
I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier...
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his jus...
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth ...
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much lib...
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I ...
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilizatio...
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherw...
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth...
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty...
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, s...
In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural w...
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to...
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or n...
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothi...
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can sta...
Government
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A...
It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished with...
It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation whic...
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actuall...
Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as nece...
Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual ...
Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than ...
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not consti...
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of d...
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results fr...
My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of ...
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Never spend your money before you have earned it.
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right...
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carr...
No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and ...
Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving...
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain a...
One man with courage is a majority.
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you f...
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road i...
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in whi...
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish...
Peace
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling all...
Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix wi...
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there ...
Religion
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within l...
So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the governm...
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of...
Speeches that are measured by the hour will die with the hour.
Taste cannot be controlled by law.
That government is best which governs the least, because its people di...
Government
That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a pa...
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until...
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is th...
The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who a...
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who ar...
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the gi...
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they a...
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who r...
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two wordswhen ...
The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to ske...
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government ...
The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first i...
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occas...
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and be...
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood...
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of...
The world is indebted for all triumphs which have been gained by reaso...
There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virt...
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to...
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liber...
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbe...
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas w...
To myself, personally, it brings nothing but increasing drudgery and d...
Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to so...
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very...
War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and...
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a f...
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of...
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equa...
We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by...
We never repent of having eaten too little.
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government witho...
What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering...
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public ...
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one ...
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we s...
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins ...
Politics
Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their ...
Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.
Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.